England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Decisions

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE
CIVIL DIVISION
ON APPEAL FROM THE HIGH COURT
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
ADMINISTRATIVE COURT LIST

		The Royal Courts of Justice The Strand London Friday 25 January 2002

Friday 25 January 2002

1. LORD JUSTICE SIMON BROWN: This is in many ways a sad case. Mr Chawda, the applicant, has failed, essentially through ill-health, to achieve his ambition, in which plainly his family shared, to complete a three-year course at the University of Portsmouth for a Bsc in Pharmacy. That failure, however, is now a long time in the past.
2. The course began in 1990. As a result of blackouts and other debilitating conditions, he needed to resit both the second-year and the third-year examinations. Alas, he again failed the third-year examination at the second attempt and was at that stage required to withdraw from the course. That was in 1990, now over six years ago. Regrettably, his ill health persisted and an application for permission to apply for judicial review was not in the event brought until April 2001, many years out of time. There is indeed a three-month time limit on the period within which this court's supervisory jurisdiction may be invoked, although that, of course, is extendable for good reason.
3. Permission was refused initially on the documents by Silber J in June 2001 and then again at a renewed oral application before Collins J on 7 September 2001. Before the court today is Mr Chawda's application for an extension of time and for permission to appeal against Collins J's order.
4. The application is, I have to say, quite hopeless. It is hopeless really for two reasons, both because the applicant has failed to identify any true legal error in the decision sought to be impugned, which is the University's decision taken by Professor Blunden, as the Chairman of the Board of Examiners, refusing him permission to attempt the third-year course for a third time, and because it is far too late to seek relief under the court's supervisory jurisdiction which, as I have indicated, must be invoked speedily if at all.
5. I have read the papers in this case and of course listened to Mr Chawda's brief oral submissions this morning, in which he complains, as reflected in the documents, that the University failed in their own procedures to acknowledge his grievance all these years ago. I am, however, entirely unpersuaded that any appeal in this case could possibly succeed. I need not repeat the facts, which were well summarised in Collins J's judgment below. In my view he was clearly right to refuse permission. Indeed that decision after this lapse of time was well-nigh inevitable.

1.1. Mr Chawda said to the judge in the course of the subsequent discussion as to the costs (which were then payable by him, since that particular application was heard with the respondent present and represented) that he had gone to law because "I did not want to go to my grave and think I did not pursue all the avenues". That of course I can understand, but I must repeat what was said by Collins J as to this really being the end of the line and how the applicant must now put this unfortunate matter finally behind him. I know that he will be disappointed but I suspect he may not be altogether surprised at this conclusion. But there is, I really must repeat, nothing which this court can properly do for him in respect of a decision taken, as the decision here challenged was, over six years ago.

6. This application must be dismissed.
ORDER: Application refused